American record producer, writer, photographer, and historian.

His work made him one of the first major scholars of jazz. In the late 1930's he edited, with Charles Edward Smith, Jazzmen: The Story of Hot Jazz Told in the Lives of the Men Who Created It.

After receiving a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1953, Ramsey undertook a tour of the South in order to explore and document the African-American music environment. His field recordings were collected on [l444342], a 10-volume set of recordings released by [l20694]. He also produced a series of historical recordings for Folkways, titled [l1400470]. In 1960 he published a book Been Here and Gone about black culture in the United States.

Born January 29, 1915, Pittsburgh, PA
Died March 18, 1995, Paterson, NJ